The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1887-08-21
IN EACH OTHERS ARMS
A Strange and Shocking
Double Suicide.
DUB PENIfENfIARY BOARD
Cornell Loses . Big Plum.-The OBJ
serVRtIOns made of the Eclipse
General News.
A Horrible Discovery.

New York, August pa disgusting
stencil has filled the tenement at 81
Charles Street, for the past few days,
and Yesterday it grew so bad that Mrs.
Franklin, the housekeeper, notified the
police that she believed the smell came
from a decayed pale of garbage in the
rooms on the second floor occupied by
Mrs. Melyina Paine and her daughter
Anna, On Monday last the women had
been seen closing the shutters, and it
was thought they had gone into the
country. The report to the police
brought no response, and this forenoon
the stencil grew so vile that Mr.. Ham
man, the owner of the house, decided to
investigate. he got out on
the fire escape and peered
through the shutters into the
Woman's room. He saw both
women lying dead in bed, which was be-
spattered with blood, maggets crawling
oyer the sheet. Horror stricken, he
rushsd for the police, and locksmith
was procured, who burst open the door.
Disinfectants we're spread about and
then an inspection was made. The
women had been lying dead sinOe Mon
day. A razor and an empty laudanum
bottle were lying on chair beside the
bed. Half stupe6ed by poison probably,
and insensible to pain, the women had
cut the arteries at their elbows
and ankles and bled to death, locked in
each others arms. Death had ioosened
their grip and they lay side by side fac
ing each other when found. Letters
found on the table showed they had
carefully considered the plan of suicide
RI Aio fpOnfher The an.
yeIope containing them was 80 soaked
with blood that the address was almost
iiIegibIe. The police made it to be
Miss Il, A. Weed, IL west, 18th Street.
Miss Weed is q daughter of the late
ThurloW Weed, and the Paynes' were
known to be old friends of the Weed
family.
The letter said:
Mss Fl, A. Weed:
Dear Friend If anything happens
that we are both found dead, will you
see that we are buried in Albany Rural
Cemetery in oaken caskets. James A.
Burns, of the cemetery, knows where
our Tot is; my mother has S18I in the
Bleecker Street Savings Bank. l have
money in the above bank; also in the
Bowery Savings and the Dry
Dock on Third Avenue. The
amounts will pay all funeral expenses.
We have pinched and saved this money
tor a little homestead, but that is all
hopeless now. We are both helpless as
to our minds. We are not fit to care
for ourselves. The contents of our
house are to be given to the poor
Another letter said: I'VE are both of
us, my mother and 1, insane and dread
the mad house. We want to be with
our family. Tell our relatives where we
lie. Our relatives are Henry Martin,
81 Seely Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio; s. NJ.
Talbot, VII oughby Lake County Ohio;
Julia A. Mansfield, Chateauqusy,
Franklin County, n. Y"
The Payne family have lived in the
house upwards of three years. They
were quiet, gentle women. Mrs. Payne
was widow of about sixty years; her
daughter, about thirty-fiYe years, was
teacher in an East-side publlo school.
It is not. known by the neighbgrs that
there was anything unusual about the
women.